Fashion Center Labels Berlin 2

HHF Architects have created a new fashion center Labels Berlin 2. At the beginning of the year 2007 they won the competition and in the spring this the fashion center opened its door. This complex houses a series of showrooms of well-known international brands. This exceptional concentration of top brands stores in one fashion center is complemented by public areas, concert hall, restaurants and lounge rooms. The concept of the building was inspired by another fashion center Label Berlin 1 situated just few meters away. The facade of this historical building comprises a series of arched windows. Architects took advantage of this element and it became the key element of the design. Thanks to that they proofed that even a modern building can be embedded in the existing build-up area. The project is unique not as much for its shape or details, but its one of a kind construction. The entire concrete skeleton is perforated by water piping that serves for heating and cooling. The energy consumption was decreased by unbelievable 40%.

Nanjing Set To Get 485m Tall Aedas Design

The energy may have gone out of Dubai but in China the supertall boom continues, this time with a 485 metre tall skyscraper designed by Aedas on Hunan Lu in the Chinese city of Nanjing.

Developed by the Suning Group, the star of the show is a 105 floor mixed-use building which is inspired by Pan Long. If you're not Chinese the reference may be lost on you, but this is basically a mythical Chinese dragon famous for its spiralling shape. Within will be serviced apartments on the upper floors that have narrower floor-plates, with offices occupying the middle floors with their larger floor sizes.

At the base, taking advantage of the broad internal sizes of each floor will be 8 levels suitable for either offices or retail meaning the tower could stand atop a shopping mall if the developer so decides.

The building has been designed with cladding that will allow the air to circulate naturally through it and around the building, saving on air conditioning costs. The other advantage of this is that by absorbing some of the on-coming wind rather than deflecting it, the structure is faced with less stress and thus less material can be used to construct it.

The site isn't just the main tower though. The Suning Group has assembled a parcel of land that takes into account the neighbouring site too and Aedas has tried to link them together as one unified development thus the lower floors of the tower connect to a low-rise building next door via four levels, and then continue through to the neighbouring trio shorter residential towers of 200 metres, 170 metres and 140 metres on the far end of the adjacent plot.

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Agriculture Museum | a10studio

Mexico-based firm a10studio, collaboration with Carlos Marín from lab07 and Hugo Sanchez fromENTORNO (landscape architecture consultant) designed this Agriculture Museum competition entry for the city of Culiacan (Sinaloa, Mexico). The proposal finally has been chosen as one of the finalist proposals by the government of the city.

The project is an ambitious intervention for a marginated area in the limits of Culiacan, it re-thinks the idea of “public space” in Mexico and bet on a project who could re-activate activities and exchange among citizens and neighbors of the area.

a10studio

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

+ Project description courtesy of a10studio

Background:

One of the most internationally recognized emblems of Mexico, and particularly of the State of Sinaloa, is its agricultural production. The state of Sinaloa is known as the “granary of Mexico” because it is the producer of a big variety of food. Its efficient fields have become national leaders in their yields.

Because the economy of Sinaloa is sustained by its agricultural activities, the project seeks to recognize it and promote it, through a project that displays objects related to branches of technology, history of agriculture and agronomy as well as agricultural ways which sustain the economy of Sinaloa.

Through the creation of the Museum of Agriculture the city government tries to allow the public to learn more about the forms of production in the locality, while recognizing both the agricultural practice as such, and those who make possible such a noble activity.

Agriculture Museum - Site plan, drawing courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum - Section 01, drawing courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum - Section 02, drawing courtesy of a10studio

Project Brief
Intro:

Through agriculture, man has colonized the territory for centuries, creating irrigation systems and by planting with geometric laws. Has de-naturalized the natural areas through the planting of natural elements; the distance that are planted trees or plants depends on both the size of the crop itself as the collection systems used. Each plantation produces a texture and color over the territory.

Agriculture industrializes, the landscape urbanizes.

In our proposal outside is as important as the inside. There are no objects and an external reality, but a continuum between forms that wrap and un-wrap, that close and open, that focus and serve as a focus. The architecture as this, expanded in reality, in the middle, through the environment, is an extension. The environment in which it appears is a field.

We present 3 key strategies for the development of the project:

• Operative Topographies
• Ecomonumentality
• Active Ecology

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

The spectacle of nature and city become now comparable.

+ OPERATIVE TOPOGRAPHIES:

Based on the topographic analysis of the site, we suggests a strategy of folding, cutting and movement of the territory. Such movements define platforms developed as programmatic scenarios, functional plateaus exacerbating their flexible surface condition, either as slipped and extended surfaces [dynamic soil], or as extruded surfaces [located reliefs]. In both cases it is manipulated landscapes that refer to the nature of vacant spaces, and ultimately, the very definition of landscape as a background, as construction and stage at the same time: landscapes within landscapes. The ground respond to a willingness to overlap, the reliefs to an interlock.

These topographies form in any case, new geographies on the ground; mineral and vegetal landscapes in which the movements and flows are articulated by a manipulated geography and a generated space.

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

+ ECOMONUMENTALITY:

We are used to think of architecture in function of the place, meaning that it could find the keys with which to tackle the project. There are many ways to anchor to the site. The whole place has gone from being understood as a landscape, whether natural or artificial, and it has ceased to be the neutral ground on which man-made architectural objects stand out, to become the object of primary interest and focus of attention. Thus, changing the point of view, the landscape loses its momentum and becomes an object of possible transformations, both at the architectural level, neighborhood and city-level.

The architecture starts a process of artificial blurring with an obvious interest in incorporating a natural condition, both in terms of composition as constructive (proposed construction system of rammed earth walls, to emphasize the use of existing assets in the site as well as develop strategies for sustainability and passive ecotechniques), in search for environmental sensitivity and a formal complexity that responds precisely to the values of the Culiacan society.

The project seeks to build a complete redefinition of the place, offering primarily the invention of a topography. So with this double movement, from the nature to the project and from the project to nature, we seek to rescue a “ecomonumental” condition.

An architectural proposal characterized by:

• Address both what is between things as things in themselves: public space [a hall, a plaza, a terrace] is therefore the primary object.
• The identification of the variability, the change as a key ingredient of architecture. With emphasis on the design of objects rather than the definition of definitive architectural programs.
• The commitment between scales. The project its determined and affects many areas beyond those granted by reason of mere physical contiguity. A project with translation capability, traveling between scales.
• Understand and feel simultaneously different scales and fields of perception and action.
• Acting on the near, immediate, tactile, and understand at the same time many other receptacles and dimensions that get modified with user actions, it is a flexible work program for the upcoming years.

+ ACTIVE ECOLOGY:

To the old nostalgic or pseudobucolic ecology (freezing landscapes, territories and environments) we propose a bold ecology; reclassified to be reformulated. Based not in a fearful and non-intervention purely defensive -resistant- but in a no-tax, projective and rating -(re)promotive- intervention in synergy with the environment and also with new technologies. Not only possibilities but (re)positivist.

We propose:

• An ecology where sustainability means interaction.
• Where Nature is is also artificiality.
• Where the landscape is topography.
• Where energy is information and technology the vehicle to development.
• Where development is recycling and evolution is genetic.
• Where environment is the field.

Where retain involve always intervene.

The selection of vegetal species to exhibit took into account the degree of maintenance as well as the main agricultural products of the state of Sinaloa and the natural species of native vegetation. In this way we have that public space becomes in a same gesture in museum-park-public space. Presenting the exhibiting object in real time with their processes and characteristics of agricultural activity, where the user can directly see how these are conducted and its temporality. Species selection also took into consideration the color palette that these species may have throughout the year generating a “living park” an ever-changing exhibition and intervention which always seem dynamic and not static representation of agricultural processes.

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum, rendering courtesy of a10studio

Agriculture Museum - Floor plan, drawing courtesy of a10studio

+ Project credits / data

Architectural project: a10studio + lab07
Project team: Mariano Arias-Diez, Luis Alarcón, Carlos Marín, Hugo Sánchez, Mia Modak
Type: institutional, museum and park
Location: Culiacan, Sinaloa (Mexico)
Area: 45,000 m2
Project year: 2010
Client: Instituto Municipal de Planeacion (IMPLAN) de Culiacan
Status: Competition finalist

Landscape architecture: Hugo Sánchez / ENTORNO taller de paisaje
Structural engineer: Ing. Fernando Alvarez / Construcciones FASA
Rendering and digital visualization: Carlos Marín / lab07
Lighting design: a10studio

Opening of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s Cinema Center in Busan

The Cinema Center in Busan, South Korea, designed by Wolf D. Prix/COOP HIMMELB(L)AU, the new home of the Busan Film Festival (BIFF), was inaugurated with a grand opening on 29 September 2011 in the presence of the president of South Korea. The innovative building combines open space, cultural program, entertainment, technology and architecture in a novel way. Over 800 guests, among them the Mayor of Busan, the cultural minister, the sports minister as well as film celebrities attended the ceremony.

Image © City of Busan

The president of South Korea Lee Myung-bak emphasized in his opening speech the architectural achievement accomplished with the special feature of the Busan Cinema Center – the worldwide largest cantilivered roof.

Since the Busan Cinema Center is the greatest and the most beautiful one for exclusive cinema use, the Busan International Film festival will be top 3 film festival in the world.

Lee Myung-bak, the president of South Korea

Busan Cinema Center, image © Woochang Choi Korea

As part of the festivities Wolf D. Prix, the co-founder of the Austrian architecture studio COOP HIMMELB(L)AU received as the first architect in South Korea the honorary citizenship of the city of Busan from the hands of Mayor Hur Nam-sik. The award is the highest recognition conferred by the city to personalities who have promoted Busan’s standing in Korea or abroad. Just a few days ahead of the start of the 16th Busan International Film Festival Wolf D. Prix in company with Hur Nam-sik will inaugurate the COOP HIMMELB(L)AU exhibition “Architecture is the Media and the Media is the Message” and give a lecture on “The Possibility of the Impossible“.

Busan Cinema Center, image © Woochang Choi Korea

After winning the competition for this project in 2005 construction started in the same year. The roof’s ceiling surface is completely equipped with LED projectors which allows for unique visual spectacles highlighting the Busan Cinema Center. The dynamically illuminated ceiling will serve as the center’s communication platform with visitors and passers-by. A free span of 85 meters and a roof surface of 60 x 120 meters makes the roof the worldwide largest cantilevered roof. The complex comprises about 60.000 m2 of performance, event, gastronomy and administrative spaces and has a capacity of up to 6,800 visitors.

Busan Cinema Center, image © Woochang Choi Korea

The upcoming events of the opening festivities:

04 October 2011: Opening of the COOP HIMMELB(L)AU exhibition “Architecture is the Media and the Media is the Message” at the Busan Design Center
05 October 2011: “The Possibility of the Impossible”, lecture by Wolf D. Prix at the Busan Design Center
06 October 2011: Opening of the 16th Busan International Film Festivals BIFF

Busan Cinema Center, image © Woochang Choi Korea

+ Project description by COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Busan Cinema Center / Busan International Film Festival, Busan, South Korea (2005 – 2011)

The basic concept of this project was the discourse about the overlapping of open and closed spaces and of public and private areas.

Busan Cinema Center - Diagrams, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

While the movie theaters are located in a mountain-like building, the Center’s public space is shared between an outdoor cinema and a huge public space which is called Red Carpet Area – i.e. reception area.

Busan Cinema Center, drawing © ISOCHROM.com, Vienna

The Red Carpet Area is actually three-dimensional: across a ramp which leads along a double cone the guests of honour reach the reception hall. Each of the two areas is overarched by a huge roof, one of them measuring 60 x 120 meters – the size of a soccer field – and cantilevering 85 meters.

The project, Wolf D. Prix / COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s first in South Korea, addresses the theme of the roof as an architectural element – a topic which COOP HIMMELB(L)AU has been concerned with for a long time. Already in the Renaissance and the Baroque era the roof is transformed into a cupola, thereby achieving a particular significance. But it was Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier who define the roof not anymore as a mere element of protection, but as a frame for the most diverse concepts. In Niemeyer’s house in Rio de Janeiro the roof is no longer following the floor plan, but is framing the view on the surroundings and nature. The roof of the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille of Le Corbusier is itself a landscape through its sculptural articulation.

Based on these ideas COOP HIMMELB(L)AU developed the roofs of the BMW Welt in Munich and of the Busan Cinema Center. The construction as a column-free roof covering a space comes closest to the idea of a “flying” roof, which is further differentiated by its three-dimensionally articulated ceiling and therefore not only a horizontal projection screen.

Busan Cinema Center - Program, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Concept
The Busan Cinema Center – A multifunctional urban plaza
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s design for the Busan Cinema Center and home of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) provides a new intersection between public space, cultural programs, entertainment, technology and architecture creating a vibrant landmark within the urban landscape.

LED saturated outdoor roof elements acting as a virtual sky connect building-objects and plaza-zones into a continuous, multifunctional public urban space.

Busan Cinema Center, drawing © ISOCHROM.com, Vienna

Media, technology, entertainment and leisure are merged in an open-architecture of changeable and tailored event experiences. The result is a responsive and changing space of flows acting as an urban catalyst for cultural exchange and transformation.

Busan Cinema Center - Level +01, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Busan Cinema Center - Level +03, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Project Description
The concept envisions an urban plaza of overlapping zones including an Urban Valley, a Red Carpet Zone, a Walk of Fame and the BIFF Canal Park. The urban plaza is formed by building and plaza elements sheltered by two large roofs that are enabled with computer programmed LED outdoor ceiling surfaces. The larger of the roofs includes a column-free cantilever of 85 meters over a multifunctional Memorial Court event plaza. The urban zones of the complex are formed by individual and recognizable building objects placed below the outdoor roofs. The building objects contain theater, indoor and outdoor cinemas, convention halls, office spaces, creative studios and dining areas in a mixture of sheltered and linked indoor and outdoor public spaces. The design of these spaces supports flexible, hybrid functionality that can be used both during the annual festival period and day-to-day use without interruption.

Busan Cinema Center - Level +04, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

The urban zones defined by functional surfaces in plan are further articulated in a sectional dialogue between stone-clad “ground” forms of the Cinema Mountain and BIFF Hill, and the metal and LED clad “sky” elements of the roofs. The materiality of the building objects differentiates the spaces and articulates the architectural concept. Through their shape, placement and materiality, the various parts create a dynamic and informal tension between the ground and the roof.

Busan Cinema Center - Section B-B, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Architecture and Cinema – the Main Roof
The dynamic LED lighting surface covering the undulating ceilings of the outdoor roof canopies gives the Busan Cinema Center its symbolic and representative iconographic feature. Artistic lighting programs tailored to events of the BIFF or the Municipality of Busan can be created by visual artists and displayed across the ceiling in full motion graphics, creating a lively urban situation at night, but also visible during the day.

Imbedded in the architecture the lighting surfaces serve as a communication platform for the content of the Busan Cinema Center. Light as art, which is at the very nature of cinema, creates a unique and memorable atmosphere for the public urban plaza and architecture of the BCC.

Busan Cinema Center - Level +06, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Busan Cinema Center - Level +08, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Double Cone, Café and Roof Restaurant
The Double Cone is the symbolic landmark entrance element to the Busan Cinema Center and serves as the connective element between the Cinema Mountain and the BIFF Hill. Designed as a steel web drum on top of a series of radial concrete fin walls, the Double Cone also is the only vertical structural support for the large cantilevered roof acting as a large, singular column.
During day-to-day use, the ground level of the Double Cone contains a public café with outdoor seating, and the upper level links to a world-class restaurant, bar and lounge within the roof volume with views overlooking the APEC park and river beyond.

During the festival the Double Cone marks the Red Carpet Zone and VIP entrance to the “Busan Cinema Center”, and can be used as a pre-event space for VIP’s on the ground level, or as a pre-staging area for transfer to the Red Carpet procession to the outdoor cinema stage, or to the upper levels of the Cinema Mountain or BIFF Hill foyers via the red carpet spiralling ramp and bridges suspended from the roof.

Busan Cinema Center - Section 1-1, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Cinema Mountain
The Cinema Mountain is a multifunctional building containing both a 1,000 seat multifunctional theater with fly-tower and full backstage support, and a three-screen multiplex comprised of a 400-seat and two 200-seat Cinemas. Separate entrances and foyers are provided for theater and cinema respectively, however the foyers and circulation are designed so that they can be combined depending on operational preferences.

Complete structural separation between the theater and the cinemas ensures optimal noise isolation for the theater space, which is designed as a first-class, flexible hall with seating on two levels and optimal sight lines and adjustable acoustics. A flexible proscenium type stage with side stages and fly-tower accommodates movable acoustical towers used to close down the stage volume for concerts and operatic theater, but can be easily moved for theater, musicals and other staged events. The stage includes a fore-stage lift that can provide additional seating, an orchestra pit or stage extension as preferred. Horizontally tracking curtains along the walls of the audience chamber can be hidden or deployed to adjust the acoustics of the space.

Urban Valley / Outdoor Cinema
The Urban Valley combines a flexible flat ground surface and large stepped tribunes of the BIFF Hill as seating for a 4,000 seat Outdoor Cinema. The Valley is sheltered by a large sculpted outdoor roof with an LED ceiling surface and is oriented towards a flexible stage and screen area on the outside of the Eastern façade of the Cinema Mountain. Accommodation for purpose built projection screens, stages, loudspeaker and lighting arrays are provided allowing for exterior performances to share the interior theater’s backstage facilities.

Busan Cinema Center, drawing © ISOCHROM.com, Vienna

BIFF Hill
The BIFF Hill is a ground surface formation creating the tribune seating space of the outdoor cinema and accommodating the concourse, the convention hall, the BIFF-center, the BIFF-offices and the visual media center. Given the flexible organization of the ground plan, it can be easily adapted to the different requirements during festival and day-to-day usage.

Red Carpet Zone
During the BIFF festival, or for other special events, the Red Carpet Zone is created by a special drop-off and media-event processional entrance at the Double Cone entrance element. A red carpet can be extended from the Double Cone event space and photo position to the south through the park and along a pier. VIP’s can enter from limousines along the street edge, or arrive by boat from the pier. Various options are provided for the red carpet circulation from the Double Cone to the different event and performance spaces depending on the scenario preferred, including a vibrant spiralling ramp from the staging level of the event space to the VIP restaurant lounge of the upper roof or to the BIFF Hill and Cinema Mountain on upper levels of the foyers. During non-event periods the Red Carpet Zone acts as the symbolic entryway into the Busan Cinema Centercomplex.

Busan Cinema Center - Structural integrety, drawing © COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

Memorial Court & Walk of Fame
The Walk of Fame contains the Memorial Court as a public plaza. Our proposal is to imbed sources in the ground surface projecting holographic images of the stars, directors, producers and the like who have been made a part of the Walk of Fame. Their avatars inhabit the memorial court as permanent residents; however their programs can be changed to show variable aspects of information over time or in relation to specific BIFF- events.

During non-event times the Memorial Court is used as a grand entryway to the Cinema Mountain and contains an outdoor dining area of the Double Cone Café overlooking the park and water beyond.

Due to the column-free sheltered roof above, the public plaza of the Memorial Court is a multi-functional event space that can be utilized for BIFF- or Busan City- events without interrupting the day-to-day activities of the Busan Cinema Center, or simultaneously with other events in the additional spaces.

BIFF Canal Park
The BIFF Canal Park is proposed as an extension of the open network of public programs into the planned riverside park, and as a linking element between the river and the cinema complex. A new pedestrian footbridge is proposed to connect the Busan Cinema Center site with the park across the Boulevard to the South connecting the Double Cone with the APEC Park. An additional outdoor event ‘bowl’ is proposed surrounded by canals that can provide public and private boat access to the project site. Space for a future extension of the Busan Cinema Center project is proposed as an island among the canals, further integrating the cultural functions of the Busan Cinema Centerproject with the surrounding public space and landscape environment.

+ Project credits / data

Team
Planning:
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU | http://www.coop-himmelblau.at/
Wolf D. Prix / W. Dreibholz & Partner ZT GmbH
Design Principal/ CEO: Wolf D. Prix
Project Partner: Michael Volk
Project Architect: Günther Weber
Design Architects: Martin Oberascher, Jörg Hugo
Project Team: Sergio Gonzalez, Rob Henderson, Guthu Hallstein, Matt Kirkham, Veronica Janovska, Dieter Segerer, Markus Baumann, Jasmin Dieterle, Anja Sorger, Jana Kucerova, Jan Brosch, Ivana Jug
3D Design: Renate Weissenböck, Jan-Ruben Fischer
Model: Paul Hoszowski, Ernst Stockinger, Vincenzo Del Monaco, Johannes Spiesberger, Markus Erhardt, Hyoung Sub, Marc Werner
Photography: Markus Pillhofer
Competition Team: Victoria Coaloa, Rob Henderson, Paul Hoszowski, Jörg Hugo, Irakli Itoni, Alex Jackson, Matt Kirkham, Shannon Loew, Mona Marbach, Jens Mehlan, Tom Wiscombe, Burcu Bicer, Etienne Chanpenios, Monika Heliosch, Akvile Rimantaite
Renderings: Armin Hess/Isochrom

Client: Municipality of Busan:
Kim, Byung-Heui; Cho, Seung-Ho; Chai, Young-Eeon; Seo, Myoung Seok
User: Busan International Film Festival:
Choi, Yoonna; Oh, Seok-Geun; Kim, Dong-Ho
Competition Organizer: Busan International Architectural Culture Festival Organizing Committee: Yeonjegu Jungangro, Korea

Local Partner: Heerim Architects & Planners, Seoul / Korea:
Jeong, Young Kyoon; Eu, Sung Mo; Lee, Mog Woon; Kang, In Soo; Kim, SeoniI; Shin, Dong Young; Chang, Hyo Sup

Structural Engineering: B+G Ingenieure, Bollinger und Grohmann GmbH Frankfurt / Vienna, Germany/ Austria:
Klaus Bollinger, Jan Lüdders, Daniel Pfanner, Astrid Münzinger, Jürgen Asmussen
Jeon and Partner, Seoul / Korea:
Jeon, Bong-soo, Yoon, Heum-hak, Kim, Dong-gwan, Ms. Nam, Jung-hwa, Lee, Jang-hong, Ms. Han, Hye-hwa, Kim, Seung-a, Yi, Joon

Mechanical, Electrical Engineering: Arup, Berlin, Germany:
Bryan Cody, Till Pasquai, Tobias Burkhart, Akif Berkyuerek

Lighting Design: Har Hollands, Eindhoven, Netherlands

Wind Studies: Wacker Ingenieure, Birkenfeld / Germany:
Jürgen Wacker, Michael Buselmeier

Façade Consulting to CHBL: Face of Building, Oberpullendorf / Austria:
Johannes Stimakovits, Harald Weidinger

Theater Consulting to CHBL: Artec, New York / USA:
Tateo Nakajima, Ed Arenius, Ted Pyper

Chronology
Competition: (1st Prize) 11/2005
Start of Planning: 01/2007
Start of Construction: 10/2008
Completion: 10/2011
Scheduled Opening: 29/09/2011

Project Data
Site Area: 32,100 m²
Net Floor Area (interior spaces): 51,067 m²
Gross Floor Area (interior spaces): 57,981 m²
Built-up Area: 10,005 m² (without roofs)
Cubage: 349,708 m³

Building Costs: about EUR 100 Mio
Costs per m²: 1.725 EUR/m² (excl. exterior spaces)